You make it sound like they are paid employees of the ISU; they don't have to go to any competition, they are not obligated by any means. They can give any reason to miss it they want or no reason at all.

Golden411 basically explained this while I was typing my post, but the brief version is that the ISU is the governing body for skating, and you either play by their rules or you don't play at all. V/T are certainly allowed to miss the WTT - but they are not allowed to skate in shows between April 2nd and April 23rd. As you can see, the WTT announcement is very clear on this.

Frankly, if V/M and D/W and Patrick Chan and presumably most of the other medalists can all head out to Japan, I fail to say why V/T are so special that they should get a pass.

Actually, although skaters can do as they please, as Golden41 posted, the ISU does have control over which skaters are allowed to compete in ISU events like the Grand Prix, Worlds, and the Olympics. The rule is that if a top ten skater does not skate at this event for any reason, then that skater cannot do any shows or exhibitions during the time period that the World Team Trophy is going on (or between Worlds and the Team Trophy). What the ISU holds over the skaters' heads if they do it anyway, is that the skaters can't go to worlds next year, or something like that. The ISU can also punish the skaters' national federation in various ways if the federation cannot coerce the sdkaters to comply.

Whether they would enforce this rule or not, I don't know. In the past Michelle Kwan and Evgeny Plushenko were both warned about skipping Grand Prix events. In one case Plushenko was schedule to do an exhibition in St. Petersburg, but the ISU/Russian Federation made him withdraw and jus send a tape of himn skating to be played over the jumpbotron.

In Michelle's case, the cheesefest that she was scheduled for took plce just after the Grand Prix Final, so she was technically OK andfd the IDSU did not pursue the matter.

This is important to the ISU because it means money. The Japanese television networks that are paying out millions of dollars for this event will not be happy if the ISU does not send the top skaters.

You're right they can't skate while the completion is going on (or during a certain time frame) but they can't make a skater go.

I'm not sure how they can get away with not going yet Plushenko got in trouble for missing worlds in 2010 when he was really hurt but that’s between them and their federation.

I have no doubt it will be a sold out crowd in the arena but TV wise, I would think it would be better to have top skaters there. In 2009 many at worlds had no idea it was even going on but now they had plenty of notice and of who was even going to go. Only some skaters should would be in limbo.

Did you read the Morosov interview post worlds? He is talking about I/K and that he is happy with their placement cause it showed which is truly the Russian No1 dance team right now outside russia, emphasizing the fact that there wasnt a russian judge in ice dance pannel and that helped. Maybe RF got the note?

... Does anyone know who the judges & tech panel are going to be for dance at the WTT?

Hi, Doris! I think your question was about specific names, and I have no clue about those.
For those who want to analyze what the WTT announcement says about the judging panel, see below. (I know that many have been debating the Worlds dance outcome - e.g., whether the absence of the US among judges and technical panel made any difference or not. But I don't know if anything here from the ISU is noteworthy ... my eyes are glazing over as I try to process what this means.)

13. PANEL OF JUDGES
The panel of Judges will in principle consist of 9 ISU Judges of different ISU Members in each discipline. Judges must have the qualification ISU Judge. Each participating Member may send 1 ISU Judge for Single & Pair Skating plus 1 ISU Judge for Ice Dance, total 2 Judges per participating Member. The 2 Judges must be able to cover all disciplines, i.e. Single Skating, Pair Skating and Ice Dance.
To complete the panels of 9 Judges, up to 8 additional ISU Judges (up to 4 additional Judges qualified to judge both Single & Pair Skating as well as up to 4 additional Judges for Ice Dance) will be invited from other and different ISU Members. These Additional needed Judges from Members not participating with Skaters in the ISU World Team Trophy will be selected by the ISU on the basis of the official ISU World Standings valid after the ISU World Figure Skating Championships 2012 (held at the end of March 2012), i.e. among at least the 4 ISU Member with the highest placed Singles Skaters/Pair Skating couple, Ice Dance couple regardless of the discipline, in the current World Standings subject to availability of the necessary qualified Judges.
The composition of the panel of Judges including seating order and random draw for each segment will be drawn on site.

I'm really surprised that Gachinski is going but not Tukt since I saw videos of Liza a few weeks ago and she looked pretty good while Gachinski is not doing well right now. And I'm REALLY surprised Sotnikova will go. I'm happy that she'll have another chance this year. I wonder why Sot is going instead of Liza... ISU didn't let her or Mishin decided to let her rest some more or Russia just decided to give Adelina another try?

I'm really surprised that Gachinski is going but not Tukt since I saw videos of Liza a few weeks ago and she looked pretty good while Gachinski is not doing well right now. And I'm REALLY surprised Sotnikova will go. I'm happy that she'll have another chance this year. I wonder why Sot is going instead of Liza... ISU didn't let her or Mishin decided to let her rest some more or Russia just decided to give Adelina another try?

There were rumors that Mishin didn't want any of his students to go, he later changed his mind about Gachinski (or RFSF convinced him), but not about Liza, guess they decided to finish the season for her. And Adelina has higher placement at World Standing than Liza anyway